The new generation of apple iPhone looks set to hit our shores within the next month or so and the question rises again, exactly what is the impact for mobile education. The ability to 1 way push data to handsets in the terms of audio and video has long been capable but what more can we do?
A thought would be whether synchronous communication could be achieved with a swanky touch screen phone and the general direction that these devices take. It will be interesting to see how apple extends the product, therefore setting the trend for the forthcoming copies of iPhone from camp Nokia, Sony-Ericsson etc. The trick I would suggest that apple are missing is the continued lack of flash support which is a huge disappointment for learning technologists as this would truly extend the device into a learning tool… in fact if you then think of this extended by apps such as the remote the possibilities are truly tantalising!

No Comments | In: Digital Video, eLearning | | #

It has come to light that when using Articulate presenter with FLV Videos as a talking head it is best to also include a blank audio file so that all your animations can synch with the video which is not an integral part of articulates timeline.

A few peculiar things happen though… if you use MP3 files instead of WAV files articulate is not happy, and if the file is anything but 48khz then articulate produces a hissing noise, which is very strange.

From this I determine that all audio should be in 48khz WAV format, that way everybody goes home happy…..

More can be read about this here: articulate forum

No Comments | In: eLearning | tags: articulate, audio. | #

Just a quick note on Articulate Presenter video settings. I have used the video in the top left as a speaking head for a while now, a subject that I might talk about in a further post. However…. the settings on this can trip up a project unless they meet the exact needs of Articulate.

I have found the optimum settings to be:

Codec: Sorenson Spark
Sixe: 240 x 135 (widescreen video)
Bit rate 350

Audio Bit rate 64

These settings are used in Adobe Premiere CS3 and may well help overcome many complextities. Most notably animation timings not working or large grey areas above and below the video, as mentioned on Leeds University blog: https://elgg.leeds.ac.uk/articulate/weblog/10538.html

No Comments | In: Digital Video, eLearning | tags: articulate, video. | #

i thought that i better start posting to the elearning blog and putting some content up. Our two year elearning project is drawing to a close and some major lessons have been learnt.
i will be discussing the universally applicable solutions to mid-high end elearning projects and how to bring value rich content to market in a minimum lead time.

No Comments | In: eLearning | tags: eLearning, projects. | #

I attended the 2nd African Council for Distance Education, Nigeria, 2008 and presented a conference paper on the ‘Technological and Pedagogical Issues Surrounding Mass Production of Multimedia Learning Content’ on behalf of London South Bank University.

The presentation was created into a simple flash player: Online presentation

The conference paper can also be viewed in PDF form: ACDE Conference paper

Photos from the event are also in the gallery section

No Comments | In: eLearning | tags: ACDE, conference, eLearning, lsbu, video. | #